Jessica went to school the day she would give birth. After experiencing intense cramps, she called her mother, a nurse, to pick her up and take her home. Her mother, who still knew nothing of the pregnancy, asked if Jessica would be okay and then returned to work.

At home Jessica took Tylenol and went to her room to lie down. "My cramps started getting a lot worse ... I felt like I needed to use the restroom, and when I went to push, it's as if he [her newborn baby] fell out in the toilet," Jessica says.

She says she carried the baby into her bedroom. "He never made any noises or moved at all by himself. And by the time I had got to my room, I had fallen on top of him," Jessica says. "I had blacked out, I believe, from losing so much blood...By the time that I came to and I looked down, he was underneath me."

Jessica says she tried to clear the baby's mouth and cut the umbilical cord, clamping it with a barrette. "I wasn't sure if he was still alive or if he was stillborn at that time," Jessica says.

Jessica says she then tried to clean the bathroom. By that time, her mother was calling her for dinner. "I had to go sit with my family at the dinner table," Jessica says.